Phenomenology of Religion

Phenomenology of Religion

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Phenomenology of Religion : Jean Luc Marion

Marion 's Theology and Metaphysics

What Marion seeks to combat most on the theological terrain is what he calls the "idol " a false image or concept of God . He identifies various forms of idolatry , beginning with the visual and moving on to the conceptual . Metaphysics , far from being the proper form of theology , is merely one such version of idolatry . Marion is convinced that theology has been far too wrapped up in metaphysics and can

only profit from its destruction . He shows how the end of metaphysics , as pronounced by Nietzsche , coincides with the disqualification of the metaphysical idol of God , the definition of God as causa sui (or the "moral " God . He examines both Nietzsche and Holderlin as stages on the way to a less idolatrous thinking of God

Yet Marion seeks to think not just the destruction of the "moral idol of God that is accomplished by Nietzsche , but beyond that he wants to free theology from the highest and most "difficult " idolatry , that of Heidegger 's concept of Being . Heidegger , for Marion , remains inscribed within metaphysics , although he also serves as a pointer for a way beyond it . Marion thus seeks to "outwit " Heidegger at his own game , to free God from the idolatry of Being and to open a path to thinking God as icon , which he suggests is accomplished in the thought of the gift or of charity . His procedure is the following . It is , first a careful investigation into restrictions , boundaries , and limitations , and second , an attempt to transgress such limits once they have been outlined . Idol and Distance follows a rather systematic path of progression in thinking a distance other or beyond ontological difference , while God Without Being , is essentially collections of s that further emphasize and explicate various parts of the essential arguments of this first work

Idol and Distance seeks to outline and make possible a thought of distance , where the meaning of distance emerges only slowly through the study itself . It refers , first , to the distance within Godself , the Trinitarian play at the center of Christian theology , the relation of the Son to the Father which the introduction claims already traverses and desolates metaphysics . The attempt to overcome metaphysics is central to this work . Metaphysics is defined by idolatry , especially by that of onto-theo-logy . Marion argues that one can speak of God only in terms of distance . Distance thus , second , refers also to the relation between humans and God , to a certain paradox of withdrawal and advent nearness and distance which alone makes an encounter with God possible

Only God 's infinity gets beyond ontology and causality , only God 's incomprehensibility escapes epistemology . Distance designates both infinity and incomprehensibility and will ultimately emerge as more radical than ontological difference (Heidegger ) and differance (Derrida . Marion 's theological category of distance , and specifically his thought of God , then , are asserted to be more successful than all present philosophical transgressions...